Wilderness Exploring?

Watching my colleagues disappear one by one as they march single file into “The Tall Forest” makes me REALLY happy that I joined The Habitat Restoration Team (HRT).

The Cosumnes River Preserve (CRP) is over 71 square miles large which gives plenty of room for patches of real wilderness. Which is good because one of our “missions” is to expand those pockets. Expand them right here in plain view of the most populous state in the Union.

Once we are in the Forest, past the edges of the fields that we use for buffer zones and future expansion, we might as well be on a different continent. We feel so secluded, so immersed, that it becomes total escapism. Escapism? Escaping from what? For me, it’s escaping from civilization if only for a day.

Of course, we are in there for a purpose. Usually, it’s to remove some invasive alien plant. That is the justification for being in the middle of this beautiful Eden of a place. But, quite honestly, it’s being immersed in the Wilderness of it all that makes me smile. What we do on the HRT might look like work to the casual observer and they would be wrong. The smiles on our faces give it all away